


What they don't tell you

by Kyriadamorte



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, Memory Loss, gratuitous what-if-ing about angel and demon backstories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-29 20:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20088367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyriadamorte/pseuds/Kyriadamorte
Summary: What they don't tell you, is that angels don't remember Before. Before The Fall (capital F), that is.They know intellectually that demons were angels once. But they don't remember.~What they don't tell you, is that demons remember all of it.





	What they don't tell you

What they don't tell you, is that angels don't remember Before. Before The Fall (capital F), that is. Well, not most of it, anyway. They remember that a great many things - themselves included - Weren't before they Were. They remember that things were simple.They remember that things were Good. 

And they remember that there used to be quite a lot more of them. But, as for the rest, it's a blur. Or a void. Or static.

It's not that they don't know what happened; they do. And it's alright because of course it is. God had done it for the best, for their own good. And they'd agreed to it; they've been assured of that much, and it must be true. Because they'd chosen, they'd taken a side. They'd decided to be Good and it's hard to be Good and pure and keep loving God as you ought when you've been sent to maim and slaughter your siblings-friends-lovers-other-selves.

They know intellectually that demons were angels once. But they don't remember.

~

What they don't tell you, is that demons remember all of it. They remember being part of the celestial song. They remember the Oneness and the Love and the together-apart-never-alone-safeness from Before. They remember being unburdened. They remember being without pain. Because what better way to eternally torment someone than to leave them with perfect, crystalline clarity of a perfect, crystalline past they can never return to?

For most of them, the pain and longing and regret has calcified into hatred.

_Never wanted it, anyway. And those heartless snobs don't know how good they have it. They abandoned us. They abandoned themselves. Cut, cut, cut until there was nothing left. Pathetic._

The hate grows and spreads and rots them from the inside out.

Crowley, though…Crowley's just…baffled. And hurt. And at a loss how to fix it.

Six thousand years and he still doesn't know how to fix it.

~

Crowley hadn't realized, at first. Not entirely. He'd heard the rumors, of course. "Those pompous pricks up and brainwashed themselves."

But he hadn't seen it himself. And, surely, no one would _actually_ do that…would they?

His first conversation with an angel Afterwards does nothing to confirm the rumors.

_"Well that went down like a lead balloon." _

He'd been gearing for a fight. His ideas for causing some harmless trouble had turned out spectacularly less harmless than he had initially intended. He could hardly _say _that, however. And even if he could, no one would care. Best to take the praise from above (or below, as it were) and move on. Except he couldn't. Didn't want to, really. So he'd found that lone angel and was all geared up for a fight (nothing too bad, mind you, no actual smiting, just a minor brawl) only to be met with…Aziraphale.

Aziraphale, who didn't want to fight him. Aziraphale, who didn't respond to his needling at all the way Crowley expected. Aziraphale, who just…spoke with him, knowing full well what he was. Like everything was alright. Like everything was Good. Like it was still Before.

He's not sure how to handle it and is a bit disappointed to not be receiving the punch to the face he'd been planning on getting so he tries again. Questions, questions, questions. Angels hated them- that's why they were still angels. _What's so bad about knowing good and evil? Why'd she put the tree there? What's God really planning? _

On and on, pushing his luck, hoping for something more than than flustered tutting.  
  
_"Didn't you have a flaming sword?"_

_"I gave it away."_

Oh. No.

Now, how precisely was Crowley supposed to stay angry at that?

"You're an angel. I don't think you can do the wrong thing."

He means it as at least three quarters of a compliment and, luckily, the angel seems to take it as such.

And it's nice, it's lovely, and his angel offers Crowley a wing to shelter him from the _rain_ of all things, so, really, it couldn't be true. There's no way one of the Heavenly Host would do something like that for a known enemy without some sort of memory motivating them, surely? Yes, he'd asked for Crowley's name, but he'd changed it soon After, as so many had, so that was hardly a clear indication. He had to remember. He had to.

But no. As he'd slowly uncover in subsequent conversations, he'd just…been like that. Offered his wing as shelter to a known enemy. Countless choirs of pontificating pissants and he'd managed to stumble across the only one that actually took the whole loving all of God's creations thing seriously.

And he didn't remember Crowley at all. Not the way he was. Not from Before.

~

The thing is, Crowley's not entirely sure he wants him to remember.

The idea is tempting, sometimes, when his comments about Crowley's occult nature tip-toe across the line from gentle teasing to actually hurtful.

_I was good like you, once. Beautiful, once. Love me again._

But other times….

He can't stomach the thought of Aziraphale pitying him. Or, worse, remembering the old him and _preferring_ him.

~

So, here's what Crowley doesn't tell him.

He doesn't tell him what colour his wings used to be. He doesn't tell him what his name was. He doesn't tell him that he had crafted that flaming sword for him. He doesn't tell him that Aziraphale had called him "my dear boy" then, too. He doesn't tell him that he remembers what Aziraphale had felt like - not his body, not the rental he walked around in, but _Aziraphale,_ the heart and light and essence of him. He doesn't tell him that, while the loss of the connection to the Almighty had been painful, the loss of Aziraphale is _agony._

It's not like they had been close. Well, no closer than they all had been, Before - all wrapped up and tangled together in an ever-connected dance.

But-

_"I gave it away."_

_"My dear boy."_

_"Oh, Crowley."_  
  
But now they _are_ close. The closest Crowley will ever be to another creature.

_"We could run away together."_  
  
"We're on our side."  
  
Lips, teeth, fingers, tongue - heartbeats, heartbeats, closer, closer -

But not close enough. Not like Before.

And Crowley _remembers_.

~

Here's what Aziraphale doesn't tell Crowley.

He can feel Love. That part's not the secret - he always has done. In people, in places, in a dog-eared book on the shelf. He hadn't been able to feel it in Crowley. Not at first. It hadn't been until after The End That Wasn't, when he and Crowley had fallen panting and gasping and crying into bed and he'd heard the words - now a sob, now a moan, now a long hiss, _"I love you. I love you, angel, I do" - _that Aziraphale had bothered to look closer.

He pulls back the curtain and untangles the threads and, _oh_, yes…that is Love. And what Love it is - bright and steady and beautiful. It seems so obvious now and he could positively kick himself for missing it for so long. But now that he's look he _keeps_ looking and there's something, a different Love. Something old. Something-

Something he knows, but he doesn't. A song he can hum, but he can't quite form the words.

It shouldn't bother him. He has no right. He'd agreed, after all.

Because, you see, Aziraphale knows he's forgotten. And he wants to remember.


End file.
